Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

On January 13, 1990, the original film’s operatic theme song was played aboard NASA’s Columbia Space Shuttle as a morning wake-up call to the crew. [PDF] This was an inside joke, as Columbia was ordered to recover 12.5 million tomato seeds that had been sent into space in 1984. These were subsequently given to schools all over the world and experimented with by children. Young scientists overwhelmingly agreed that NASA’s space tomatoes were just as tasty as those grown here on Earth.